'The situation is a strange one,' said the Indian meditatively. 'I doubt if the world has ever seen a stranger. You have come to us--not as a great nation that conquers another by the resources of a higher civilisation--but as a company of traders. Money-making--that was your object. Yet you sent us of your best--great soldiers, high politicians, men of lofty will and noble aims. And we, Asiatics, who adore in others the qualities we lack ourselves, have paid them homage, and fought under their banners in defence of the rights won from the weakness of our rulers. And so, out of the acts of a trading company, a great empire has grown. But let me tell you,' said Chunder Singh impressively, 'that the quality of the rule smacks of its origin. It is just in most cases, but it is not sympathetic, nor is its policy large and beneficent. With any other nation under the sun the results would be disastrous. But you English are a strange people. You go straight on. In your wildest flights you cannot forget that you have a conscience, and so you have won the respect of some and the superstitious dread of others, and your empire goes on increasing.' 'But you do not love us,' I said. 'How can we?' answered Chunder Singh. 'As in the Divine--which is the model of all excellence--the Supreme Spirit, from whom all flows, and to whom all must return--love must begin from above. Do you love us? You know you do not. I am not speaking of you individually, or of any other man. One here and there, considering the greatness of our land, may take an interest in us. But, as a nation, do you care for us?' It was impossible for me to say that we did, knowing full well the contrary, and then those strange words, which echo still in my ears, were spoken. 'Let England look to it! Let her listen to the voices of her wise men! Let her know that if she does not bestir herself now the time will come when she must! She is standing to-day on the thin crust of a volcano, which, at any moment, may crack under her feet, sending her down into a gulf of fire, which it will take all her strength to quench.' He would not explain what he meant, though I pressed him earnestly. No doubt his words were merely rhetoric--an idea of his own, coloured with Oriental exaggeration; but they haunt me in a very curious way. Can this, I ask myself, have had anything to do with the rajah's secret? We are passing the coast of Portugal, a low, barren-looking country. Rain clouds are floating about; the sea is lumpy, and a veil of white mist covers the land; but this is sometimes lifted, and then the low, sandy coasts gleam out with a startling brilliancy. I hear that, if this wind holds, we shall put in at Gibraltar to-morrow.